Well Enough
by LadyPiBond
Summary: The past is full of terrors. OC included. No OCxCanon.


_I thought I should write a short story to distract myself from things. This centres around a character of mine, Anne Douglas. If you don't like OCs, then this story isn't for you. In short: Anne is a 65 year old steward of the Hellsing Mansion. While the story centres around her relationship with Walter, it isn't OCxCanon unless that also encompasses friendship and camaraderie. _

_I hope you enjoy. The italics are flashbacks._

_Thank you for reading._

* * *

She screamed.

The cries of pain and panic woke him quickly, and before he could bother himself to question the reason, he was already beside the elderly woman. No, he didn't have to ask questions. He already knew. It was something he knew ever since the first night she stayed in the mansion. As quickly as he had arrived, he held her hand gently as she attempted to recollect herself. Her eyes moved quickly about, her fingers pressed against the bridge of her nose as she fought to suppress the images shaping themselves in front of her. Eventually, she shut her eyes.

_Calm down now. You'll wake everyone. _

_Will I? I wasn't I aware I yelled._

_Walter peered humourlessly at Anne, his eyebrows furrowing in frustration and annoyance. For the first week, she had been doing nothing but yelling through the night. Her cries were tiresome, her uselessness a burden to him, and her refusal to leave the past behind irritating. _

_You can't change what happened. Drink your tea and move on._

_You killed him._

_I showed him mercy. He was already dead when I arrived. Now I'm caring for his widow…what else do you want from me?_

_Compassion._

Her hand gripped his tightly, her fingers tracing the grooves of his skin, gently lifting themselves as she grazed a wrinkle. Come back, she told herself. "Where am I?" Anne whispered, and soon felt Walter's other hand on her arm, squeezing it tightly to remind her of her presence.

"Right here," he replied calmly. He politely moved his hand down to her wrists, allowing her full sensation of his hand. Whatever she could feel would be better. It would remind her of nothing else but the present. Anne nodded, looking up at the aged man. She gazed at him for a long while, her eyes eventually glazing over him and his youth seeming to return. His wires wrapping itself around the room, blood spilling from the walls as pieces of torn skin fell from the ceiling. Walter grasped her wrist, realising he was losing her again.

_I've had quite enough of this. _

_I can't get out._

_You chose this life. You must cope with it yourself. _

_I can't leave._

_No-one forced you to kill the beings that consumed your husband. No-one held you against your will and demanded you hunt more than your childish animals. You have no-one to blame but yourself. _

_Walter squeezed her wrists, exhausted of her girlish episodes. If she was going to think of that man so much, then perhaps he should've done the favour of dispatching her to him._

_I can't get out._

_Then stay…_

Seeing her blank expression, Walter then took a deep breath and pulled her to him, patting her shoulders gently. There was his scent, his clothes, his aged skin…so many sensations she focused and used to pull herself back. Pressure built up in her temples, and she returned from her past, her cries quelled and her mind vacant of thoughts. Her body relaxed and she couldn't help but smile as Walter pulled away from her, tilting her chin up gently in an effort to restore some energy to her. "All well?" he asked pleasantly, relieved to see her recovering from her episode.

_All well now?_

Anne chuckled, recollecting the past 40 years of their lives together. "Well enough."

* * *

_If it's difficult to deduce from the story (sorry about that), Anne suffers from night terrors and flashbacks due to traumatic event in which her late husband (Ralph Douglas) was unfortunately killed in a vampire attack and turned into a ghoul (which then tried to kill her). It was an event she never was able to mentally escape from, and thus becomes both trapped in the past and in Hellsing. _

_The story is meant to go back and forth using the same situation, but different reactions that were shaped with time. At this point, Anne and Walter had been comrades for 40 years (39 to be exact but I'll just round up). The flashbacks introduce his initial reactions to her episodes as a 30 year old man while comparing it to the present as a 69 year old man. Time smooths over even the sharpest of stones, which is something I want to portray with Walter's reaction to Anne's problem of not only clinging to the past, but being stuck in it._

_Thanks for the read._

_Madame M_


End file.
